Hollywood Now: Mila Kunis is Badass, Timothée Chalamet is in ALL the Films & More

Mila Kunis is Badass

Mila Kunis teams up with Kate McKinnon in the comedy The Spy Who Dumped Me as a woman and her BFF who become involved in international intrigue because her secret agent ex-boyfriend (Justin Theroux) is fleeing assassins—and now they are too.

“I have always wanted to do a badass girl action comedy,” says Kunis, who is Jewish and has been in an interfaith marriage with Ashton Kutcher, the father of their two kids, for three years. “It was one of the funniest, most obnoxious, wonderful comedies that I had ever read and it was super badass. Kate McKinnon was attached to it and I’ve been a fan of hers; she’s … incredibly talented, and way funnier than I am.” The cast of the movie, opening August 3, also includes Gillian Anderson, Paul Reiser and Outlander’s Sam Heughan as a British spy.

Summer TV Picks

Premiering July 25 on Hulu, Castle Rock is a horror anthology series based on stories by Stephen King and starring André Holland,Sissy Spacek, Melanie Lynskey, Bill Skarsgård,Jane Levy and Scott Glenn. It’s the latest project from producer J.J. Abrams, who is Jewish and married to Katie McGrath, a Catholic public relations exec. Abrams’ next directorial effort is Star Wars: Episode IX, which will be released in December 2019.

Mark Cuban and his Shark Tank colleagues may be predatory when it comes to deals, but what happens when they face real apex predators? Find out on Shark Tank Meets Shark Week, a special airing as part of Discovery’s 30th anniversary edition of Shark Week. Alongside colleagues Daymond John, Barbara Corcoran, Robert Herjavec and Kevin O’Leary, Cuban—who is Jewish and has been in an interfaith marriage with Tiffany Stewart since 2002—will learn about shark-related issues and conservation. Then they’ll compete against each other for a $50,000 donation to an oceanic charity. It premieres July 25, with several repeat showings during the rest of the week.

Bob Odenkirk. Credit: Nicole Wilder/AMC/Sony Pictures

Bob Odenkirkreturns to AMC August 6 for the fourth season of Better Call Saul, which picks up in the aftermath of the suicide of Chuck (Michael McKean). But the story’s timeline will play out in what Odenkirk calls “the gift of flashbacks,” so don’t be surprised to see Chuck appear. Odenkirk, who is Catholic and of Irish-German descent, has been married for 21 years to Jewish producer Naomi Yomtov, the mother of their two children.

Now in Theaters (and Netflix)

Timothée Chalamet. Credit: A 24

In his first film to hit theaters since his Oscar-nominated performance in Call Me by Your Name, Timothée Chalamet stars in a different kind of coming of age tale: Hot Summer Nights, a July 27 release in which his character becomes involved with a marijuana dealer—and his sister—during the summer of 1991 on Cape Cod. He’ll follow it in October with Beautiful Boy, about a real-life father and son duo. Chalamet plays the character of Nic Scheff, a young man battling methamphetamine addiction, and his father, David (whose memoir it’s based on), is played by Steve Carell.

Chalamet, who is Jewish on his mother’s side, isn’t slowing down. He’s completed work on Woody Allen’s A Rainy Day in New York, in which he stars opposite Selena Gomez,Elle Fanning and Jude Law. And he’s currently filming The King for Netflix with Joel Edgerton, Robert Pattinson and Ben Mendelsohn, playing Prince Hal. It’s an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I, Henry the IV, Part II and Henry V and is due out in 2019.

He’s also in negotiations to play Paul Atreides in a new adaptation of Paul Herbert’s sci-fi classic Dune, and to portray Laurie in a new version of Little Women, which would reunite him with his Lady Bird director Greta Gerwig and co-star Saoirse Ronan. Also to come: the rumored sequel to Call Me by Your Name.

Lizzy Caplan & Michael Pena in Extinction

A father’s recurring nightmares come true when aliens invade the planet in Extinction, starring Michael Pena (Ant-Man and the Wasp) and Lizzy Caplan (Masters of Sex) as parents fighting to survive and protect their family. The Netflix movie premieres July 27. Caplan, who is Jewish, married Tom Riley (DaVinci’s Demons) last September. She’ll next star in the Apple TV crime drama series Are You Sleeping with Aaron Paul, Elizabeth Perkins, Ron Cephas Jones and Mekhi Phifer.

About Gerri Miller

Gerri Miller writes and reports from Los Angeles about celebrities, entertainment and lifestyle for The Jewish Journal, FromtheGrapevine.com, Brain World, HeathCentral.com, and others. A New York native, she spent a summer working at Kibbutz Giv'at Brenner in Israel and attends High Holy Day services at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood every year.